Smart Home Hacks, by Gordon Meyer, O'Reilly

Remember George Jetson? Jane, his wife? Judy, Elroy, and of course Astro, the family dog? In this futuristic cartoon from the '60s, George starts each day in the sonic shower and Jane dials up a great dinner, while Rosie the household robot takes care of the chores. Ahh, what a life in the lap of technology!

Today we are well into the 21st century. Technology is racing ahead, even though we haven't reached the Jetsons' level of comfort.

This book aims to right that injustice through the use of X10 home automation. X10, while I hadn't heard much about it before, turns out to be an old standby for home automation, something I'd once regarded as too arcane to be involved in.

What X10 does is use your pre-existing home wiring as a network, sending pulses to whichever device [lamp, PC, alarm system, etc.] has an address upon the network. While I'd previously assumed it would be necessary to replace almost every electronic device I owned, it turns out not to be true at all, as there are X10 modules going for quite low cost. Simply plug one in, plug your device to it, assign the address, and you're most of the way there. Every X10 module is uniquely identified by a house code (A-P) and a unit code (1-16), giving a broad range of potential addresses.

While the above is enough to begin with, the hacks presented here- chock full of URLs, ideas, information about software and specific projects- are aimed at not just setting up an automated house, but a smart one. A house that knows when you're in a room, adjusts the lights and heat as you walk through it, checks the litter box, talks and responds to you, waters the lawn, and....

...yes. Talks and responds to you. There is a project for that, with very clear, solid instructions for setting it up. Also controlling and monitoring your house from anywhere in the world. And no, this isn't just for Linux users, either. There are resources for Windows, Mac and [of course] Linux all throughout.